National Hunt racing is a broad church and accepts rich and poor on equal
terms. So the only disappointment among the rank and file at Cheltenham on
Tuesday when Rich Ricci, the flamboyant multimillionaire Barclays executive,
won the William Hill Supreme Novice Hurdle with Champagne Fever was that the
owner was not present to witness his big moment.

Ricci, the chief executive of Corporate and Investment Banking at Barclays who made his name and his fortune as Bob Diamond’s side-kick in the pre-recession era of huge bonuses and oversaw the ‘deal of the century’ to buy Lehman Brothers, was called away on business at the 11th hour.

It meant he was unable to see an inch-perfect ride from Ruby Walsh on the Willie Mullins-trained Champagne Fever to make every yard of the running in the weather-delayed opener and withhold the late and sustained challenge of AP McCoy on the well-backed 15-8 favourite My Tent Or Yours by half a length.

It is very possible that Ricci, whose fortune has been described as well in excess of £50million and who will have seven or eight runners this week, will see his wife’s green spotted pink colours back into the winner’s enclosure on Wednesday in the Neptune Investment Management Novice Hurdle – albeit from a television in the boardroom.

The American, originally from Nebraska, owns the red-hot favourite Pont Alexandre but it is another of his horses, the provocatively named Fatcatinthehat, a runner in the Fred Winter Juvenile Hurdle, which seems to have raised hackles in certain circles where people who made money out of the crash rather than sank with it are still vilified. On his regular visits to Ireland on Sundays in the winter Ricci is usually to be seen in a tweed suit, dark glasses and trilby, a caricature of a fat cat.

The man with the fantastically apt name has owned horses for seven years and is now among the leading jump owners in Ireland along with the long established JP McManus and Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair.

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One man very much there was course chairman Robert Waley-Cohen, who saw his son Sam, who became a father for the first time on Saturday night, warm up for Friday’s Gold Cup on Long Run, by winning the Rewards4Racing Novices’ Handicap Chase on 16-1 Rajdhani Express. It was the amateur jockey’s fourth Festival winner.

“Rajdhani Express won at Kempton on Boxing Day before Long Run won the King George so I’m hoping it’s an omen,” said the chairman. “It’s also my first homebred Festival winners so it is very exciting.”

Earlier Brendan Powell, 18, tasted Cheltenham success for the first time when he rode Golden Chieftain to a 10-length success for trainer Colin Tizzard in the JLT Specialty Chase. “I came here delighted to have a ride let alone a winner,” said the talented but unassuming jockeys whose father, Brendan, also rode winners at the Festival.

Like Rich Ricci, Powell will not be at Cheltenham today either – he is also detained by business elsewhere – in his case four rides at Huntingdon. “A bit of reality,” he said.